renameCollection¶

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Definition
Exceptions
Shell Helper

Definition¶

renameCollection¶

Changes the name of an existing collection. Specify collections to renameCollection in the form of a complete namespace, which includes the database name. Issue the renameCollection command against the admin database. The command takes the following form:

copy

{ renameCollection: "<source_namespace>", to: "<target_namespace>", dropTarget: <true|false> }

The command contains the following fields:

Field	Type	Description
`renameCollection`	string	The namespace of the collection to rename. The namespace is a combination of the database name and the name of the collection.
`to`	string	The new namespace of the collection. If the new namespace specifies a different database, the `renameCollection` command copies the collection to the new database and drops the source collection.
`dropTarget`	boolean	Optional. If `true`, `mongod` will drop the `target` of `renameCollection` prior to renaming the collection.

renameCollection is suitable for production environments; however:

renameCollection blocks all database activity for the duration of the operation.
renameCollection is not compatible with sharded collections.

Warning

renameCollection fails if target is the name of an existing collection and you do not specify dropTarget: true.

If the renameCollection operation does not complete the target collection and indexes will not be usable and will require manual intervention to clean up.

Exceptions¶

exception 10026:
	Raised if the `source` namespace does not exist.
exception 10027:
	Raised if the `target` namespace exists and `dropTarget` is either `false` or unspecified.
exception 15967:
	Raised if the `target` namespace is an invalid collection name.

Shell Helper¶

The shell helper db.collection.renameCollection() provides a simpler interface to using this command within a database. The following is equivalent to the previous example:

copy

db.source-namespace.renameCollection( "target" )

Warning

You cannot use renameCollection with sharded collections.

Warning

This command obtains a global write lock and will block other operations until it has completed.

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